


Down These Mean Streets

by infiniteviking



Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Uprising
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 14:59:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteviking/pseuds/infiniteviking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>General Tesler captures a User… for all of five minutes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down These Mean Streets

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Secret Santa fic written for Vanthe. :)

The program stalks slowly, insolently forward, his circuits a mostly-red blur through the downpour, and there’s nowhere left for Alan to go.

“End of the line for you, _User_ ,” the program gloats, waving his brightly glowing hand expansively. “Too bad you didn’t turn the other way. You could have made this little chase so much more interesting. But no, you had to go blundering into a corner you can’t escape from. Or did you think for some reason the rules wouldn’t apply to you?”

Alan bites his lip. The program can see him, of course, for all he’s tried to hide in one of the recesses in the wall — better than _he_ can see anything, with the wind pelting his glasses with stinging rain. The code of the broken spar he picked up, a last-ditch attempt at defense, hums under his numbing fingers like something alive. Flynn’s crazy mythologies had always been full of the powers Users could wield in the digital world, but what good are they if he doesn’t know how to use them?

The program stops, and not even Alan’s blurred vision could miss the sneer on his face. It’s… oh god, it’s Mike from the General Utilities team, same high forehead and ugly smile, and yet it’s also obviously not; a glowing hand shoots forward and takes Alan’s wrist in a crushing grip, effortlessly slamming him against the wall with his hand ratcheted high above him, the spar dropping from fingers too numb to hold it. Alan’s shoulder screams and his vision whites out, and the program catches his other wrist as he tries to get a grip on the first gauntlet.

Alan shakes the rain out of his face. His shoulder’s going to be useless for a week and if he tries to move the program will realize that. But he glares down into his captor’s eyes anyway and takes satisfaction in the flash of uncertainty he finds there.

“All right, you’ve got me,” he rasps. “What do you think you can get away with before I pull you apart line by line?”

The program glowers, and glances behind him, as though expecting reinforcements or another attack. It’s familiar — Mike had never liked to be challenged either. Alan narrows his eyes. If the program doesn’t want defiance, that’s all the more reason to give it to him.

“You don’t know,” he scoffs. “What’s the matter, not as high-and-mighty as you’d like people to think you are? You can’t do anything, can you? Except just take me to Clu like a good little lapdog—”

The program _snarls_. Alan’s face twists as both his arms are locked viciously together over his head, and the program retracts his free gauntlet to clench a fist at his side.

“No.” The answer is vicious, deliberate — drawn out on purpose in a mockery of consideration. The program leans in, still too far away to kick at, and smiles with proprietary cruelty. “I think I’ll hold you in reserve for a while and see what you’re made of.”

So the next stop won’t be Clu — at least that’s something.

Kevin would have said to keep the heat on, which probably means this is a great time to subside and go with a pleasant _okay, where do we start?_ — but Alan was never one to take the easy way, even before.

He grins menacingly, cold rain sliding between his teeth.

“Just how do you think you can hold me?” He twists his good hand downward as he speaks, seeking the grip spanning his wrists, forgetting to care that he has no idea what he’s capable of here. “I got away once. I can do it again.” If he can keep the program talking long enough to get his fingers on the code….

Too late, he sees the smile widen on the program’s face, the wicked anticipation in the shift of his shoulders.

“Simple,” the program purrs. “You don’t have to be conscious for your disc to tell me everything I need to know.”

He pulls back his fist and Alan has enough time to think _this is going to hurt_ —

—and it does, but not the way he expects.

It hurts when something slams into the program from the side, hurling him twenty feet down the alleyway and wrenching Alan with him. It hurts when Alan’s ribs hit a low strut at the base of one of the buildings, and he slumps over it, panting, as the program lets go. He hears a crash and the sickening sound of a hard object meeting what should have been flesh, with the faintest hint of _crack_ and _tinkle_ just to make things that much more ghoulish. He raises his head, straining to see through the storm.

The red-circuited program is lying on the ground. Not dead — he hasn’t fallen apart — but his extendable arms drape limply across the rubble like ribbons from a discarded cat toy. A dark shape stands over the fallen enemy, barely a silhouette against the red glow; here and there, a white circuit winks like a distant star.

The shape tilts as Alan’s arm flares again and the rest of the alley goes with it. Alan’s fairly sure that’s a bad sign, but the rain keeps him aware and he blinks the dizziness away. He tries to push himself up and feels a hand under his good arm; he hadn’t even seen the program move.

“What about—?” he croaks, gesturing toward the red program. He can do without a redux of the chase sequence that led him here in the first place.

The new program shifts, bringing his left hand into view. He’s holding a disc, its live circuit malignant red. Alan swallows, but his eyes are pulled back to his rescuer’s opaque helmet as a raspy, distorted, but too-familiar voice says grimly, “He’ll keep.”

There’s no time to ask. The program rezzes a lightcycle and pulls Alan up behind him, and the next several minutes are a blur of velocity and rain.

When they reach a sheltering tunnel far from the search zone, where light dry wind flowing from somewhere deep in the Grid begins to wick the moisture from their suits, the stranger halts and tries to step out of reach as soon as his vehicle collapses back into its baton. But Alan’s hand moves of its own accord to the back of the program’s neck and deactivates his helmet, disregarding the swift but futile turn and the hand that shoots up to grip his wrist.

He’s caught that expression on his own face once or twice. The flicker of four glowing squares on the program’s chest, quickly muted again, are a telling but unnecessary confirmation.

Alan doesn’t try to pull free, and after a moment the grip eases off, reluctance and warning conveyed together as the program lets go.

“They told me you were dead,” Alan says, cautiously breaching the wall of time and silence between them.

The program doesn’t speak at first — lost in memory, maybe, or sorting through some conflict. Then he answers gruffly, “Do I look dead?”

“No.” Alan’s eyes flick over the jagged scar — he’s sure that isn’t meant to be there — and then back to the tension lingering in the tight mouth and battle-weary eyes. “You look like someone who could use some help.”

Tron considers that for another long moment. Then he turns more squarely toward Alan, a trace of a smile breaking through despite himself, and says, “Took you long enough.”  
_____


End file.
